9th March 2004
I suppose if you wanted to get any sense of continuity you'd have to read this page from the bottom to the the top - but then it wouldn't really make sense because what you'd be reading first would be out of date and quite possibly irrelevant, not that I think any of this has got any relevance to anything in particular. So where does that leave me? A short discourse on the subject of punk might be a good idea. I used to get over the problem of punk by refusing to align myself with it but that's not going to work anymore - it's just a short route to getting written out of a section of musical history:
In a very nice sleeve note on the compilation of my Stiff Record days, Annie Nightingale wrote that I had stayed true to the punk ethic. That seems OK with me - I'm rather proud of it in fact. Punk is fine as an ethic or a spirit but it all comes unstuck when it's defined as a particular musical genre or fashion statement. Back in 76 and 77 it was still fairly unclear what punk actually was - the Buzzcocks were scratchy, the Ramones powerful but dim, the Clash were abrasive and the Sex Pistols were... what were the Sex Pistols - definitely not future Celebrities In The Jungle. And all over the place young upstarts like me were flying in the face of what the record companies and the music press and Radio 1 deemed worthy, upstanding, talented, commercial... It was all a bit homemade - cheap homemade clothes and jumble sale cast-offs, stolen amplifiers, guitars with rusty strings - mend-and-make-do turned into a creative force. It was like a minor communist uprising on the part disaffected middle-class youth - the divorce generation. Oh, I'm sure there was a bit of working class in there but most of the people I knew came from fine upstanding dysfunctional middle-class home backgrounds. I don't think anybody who was truly working class had time for something so essentially dilletantic as punk. Of course, I'm speaking from what I've recently seen described as the art school wing of the movement.
By the middle of 1978 I think it was all over. I certainly couldn't relate to it. By 1981 I was laying myself open to ridicule by suggesting that the time would soon come when punk bands reformed and did the cabaret circuit for the nostalgia audience. A bit wide of the mark wasn't I? There isn't really a cabaret circuit anymore - we've got Tribute now.
I'm fairly convinced that if I could just steal myself to do what I do wearing a cheap acrylic wig I could present myself as 'A Tribute To Wreckless Eric' and play to huge numbers of people who otherwise wouldn't come to see me - people (and I can assure you that these people exist) who go to see tribute bands in the certainty of hearing Good Music. I'd make loads of money and it would be a positive statement from the art school wing of the movement. I've shared this idea with Wilko Johnson and he's come up with a name for this exciting new musical style - we're going to call it Auto-Trib. Wilko was a bit worried to begin with that being older and slightly fatter than we were in our prime, we wouldn't be convincing enough even in our acrylic wigs - but that's an important part of trib - you've got to look a bit unfortunate or you just aren't going to cut it.

The poster is obviously a hoax but you get the idea. I have to point out that it's just an illustration of what could be, and not an actual event that's going to take place, because the world is full of stupid people and if I don't do this I'll get a load of emails complaining that I've left the date off. And while I'm on the subject of dates how are you getting on with finding my gig list? It's quite simple - or you have to do is put the curser over the pink guitar where it says 'Live Dates' and as if by magic a crappy box thing will appear with the dates in it. There - now I've spoilt the surprise.
Anyway back to Auto-Trib - I'm rather pleased with my idea of doing it as Neckless Derek. To begin with I thought if I could convince the world that I'd written Sailing for Rod Stewert I could do it as Deckless Derek. But the beauty of Neckless is that I can let myself go - it won't matter if my head and shoulders are joined by a pile of double chins - in the world of Auto-Trib it's almost an enhancement.
But it's quite possible that I won't have to resort to all this because it would appear that punk is alive and well and busy re-inventing itself. That's the impression I got at the Enterprise in Camden on Saturday night. The place was packed and I had a great time. Even the drunken arseholes (who eventually started a fight after I'd finished) couldn't spoil it.

The Enterprise is a bit of a dump and when I arrived there wasn't even a stage - it had been purloined by the Pet Shop Boys who were doing one of those we don't have to do this anymore so we're going back to our routes slum tourist shows at the Monarch. Not that the Monarch is a slum - well certainly not after the Pet Shop Boys had finished repanelling the interior - but I'm sure you know what I mean. The Darkness are doing it as well and a load of other big names that I can't quite remember at the moment. But thanks to the Pet Shop Boys a stage had to be built out of beer crates and whatever came to hand. I took a picture of it before the doors opened. It looks a bit dismal in the photo but it worked all right and there were so many people that you couldn't see how pathetic it really was. I supposed the Pet Shop Boys will return the real one in time and hopefully they will have scraped off any evidence of gerbils.
Click on the photo for an anorak breakdown of all the junk involved
I'm going back into my studio now to do some work. Tomorrow I'll tell you all about Andy Kershaw.

 

11th March 2004
 The Kershaw gig at the Wardrobe was a tough one for me. I think the place specialises in jazz so the moniters were a bit squawky - I'm not saying that jazz is squawky, just that jazzers don't need the level of monitoring that deaf old gits like me need - what the hell am I saying - how can I describe myself as a deaf old git in the light of my many jazz club experiences? Anyway, the sound on stage was a bit difficult to work with and what with being tired from the night before at the Enterprise I don't really think I was at my best even though everyone else said I was fab and all that.
It wasn't helped by the talkers in the audience - there's nothing like being faced with a bunch of people who are all telling each other what Dave said to them in the supermarket last Tuesday to make you feel like you really ought to just stop playing and let them get on with their conversation, which is obviously a lot more interesting than you are. I tried to tell two girls to shut up - they were in front of the PA to my left. If they wanted to talk while I was on they could have gone to the bar at the back but they chose to do it at the front. They should get a session fee from the BBC because they were right next to one of the ambience mikes. The BBC have a recording of their conversation - I hope they broadcast it one day. I said it was disrespectful to me and everybody else in the room but they were too busy talking to hear. Everybody was looking at them by this time. Someone people are just fucking stupid.
I was developing a crisis of confidence - the stage sound been so horrible and all the talking going on - I can understand it because they hadn't come to see me specifically, but it didn't make it any easier - and I could see Andy sitting at the side of the stage and I got it into my head that he was probably regretting that they'd booked me. I don't think that's the case but I have some difficult moments in my head when I'm playing. Sometimes I feel that I should just apologise to everybody and go home.
It wasn't that bad at all in the end. My only regrets are that I fucked-up the second part of Housewives and didn't dare to do the reading that I'd planned to do. I was scared I wouldn't be heard over the talking.
The BBC crew were very nice to me, as was Andy, and I was thrilled to be invited into the mobile after my set to meet the engineers. I hope they've done a good job!

 

27 March 2004
This album seems to be taking an awfully long time - I can hardly remember a time when I wasn't making it. It must be nearly finished by now - only three more tracks to mix and a few fine adjustments before I take it to the mastering place where they'll hopefully be able to rescue it... I'm sort of hoping that people will be apalled by it, but the reality is that they'll just quietly ignore it. I had a refreshing conversation with a friend the other day - he said if I made the album people expect from me it would be very boring. The sad fact is that people do have an expectation and they don't like being surprised - people who have an abstract idea in their minds of a new album full of stuff like Whole Wide World, Reconnez Cherie and Take The Cash. Having said that I'm almost seduced by the idea myself. I like those songs, I'm a fan - I'd like to meet myself one day!
I took the evening the evening off on Wednesday and went to see the Who - a bloody stupid thing to do because I'm almost completely deaf in one ear now, and one of my neighbours complained yesterday morning about a nocturnal practice session for the Rutles gigs which are coming up next week. But it was worth it (seeing the Who that is, and I'm hoping the practicing pays off too). The deafness has enhanced my mixing skills - I sort of don't care anymore.
Being in a roomful of people whose lives have also been changed, re-routed or whatever by the Who was almost akin to a religious experience. The Beatles and the Stones may have started it off for me but the Who are what made sense of it. I could talk about this all day but I'd better not or the album won't be out in time for Christmas. I took a couple of photos by holding the camera aloft and hoping for the best. Roger and Pete are the out of focus ones at the back:

We're talking about my generation - all those burgeoning bald patches. It's a bit weird seeing middle-aged men having little Quadrophenia moments, chanting 'We are the mods' - I wanted to tell them: 'No you're not.
'Anyway that's enough of all that - I don't want anyone getting depressed about hair-loss. I've circumnavigated that particular problem for the next few weeks by having it cut very short. I know I should be sporting a Rutle moptop for next week but apparently I look younger without any hair. That is, I have got hair, but it's just a fine mousey covering at the moment.
I should really be filing some kind of report on Hull, Leeds and Sheffield, not waffling on about the aging process. I'm sure there's loads to say about the gigs but I can't quite think what. Graham Beck joined me on keyboards for the first time since 1976. That was great - the thing about Graham is that he's incredibly reliable and adds an awful lot without being over-obtrusive. He augmented the sound but it still felt like a solo gig. It's a rare talent. I hope we get to do some more together.
The rain held off in Hull and I really enjoyed it even though I think there could have been more people. Leeds was weird - not as many people as the promoter expected and certainly not the size of audience that I think I deserve, but they were very well behaved. In fact they were so quiet that they made me nervous - I thought I'd done something wrong. Have I shot myself in the foot by railing on about audiences who've come along to chat to each other?
Sheffield was a bit more lively but I was thrown off during the reading by a barracking drunk - I can take any amount of heckling as long as it's interesting but this wasn't, it was just boring. Then I got a bit stroppy when someone shouted 'Play some of the old stuff.' I quite enjoyed that really and did a very aggressive version of Local followed by a tirade about all that being thirty years ago and it being a miracle that some of us are still alive and we should be happy about it and not forever looking backwards etc... then I played Whole Wide World. I sometimes think I'm a bit of a twat really. But then who isn't?

 

31 March 2004

I don't know what I can tell you about the first Rutles gig - it wasn't as terrifying as I thought it might be. For the first time doing supports of this sort I actually felt that I was part of the reason the show sold out - when I did stuff with the Blockheads, when Ian was still alive, it wouldn't have mattered who was supporting, the event would always sell out. Those gigs were quite easy to do - I could be sure of some audience support because I was part of the family, but with the Rutles a lot of their fans wouldn't know who I was. I met some of them last night and they told me as much (they told me they enjoyed it too). I also met fans of mine who told me that I was what swung it for them -if I hadn't been on the bill they might not have bothered. So I felt useful. But fuck that - I had a great time. Didn't really get the best of the Rutles afterwards because we were stuck in the corner with the merchandising. I've got to make a real effort with that on this tour because the Inland Revenue seem to think that I'm going to earn a shitload of money this year and have decided to tax me accordingly. It amounts to little more than an inefficient way of saving - at the end of the year they'll give it all back to me unless things go incredibly well. And if that happens I might have to leave the country - I don't want to pay money in tax which will just go towards financing the Blair cunt's ride into the history books, I'd prefer to live in a country that opposed the war. Like France - I still have my Carte de Sejour. But then Blair's ride into the annals of history must be pretty well over by now. Hopefully he's fucked-up badly enough that he'll have to go, make way for the next cunt.
 Anyway, no sense in getting depressed. Tomorrow night we'll probably pack up when the Rutles are on so that we get to see them. We'll do the hard sell in between. Of course, tomorrow night the place will be full of hardcore Rutle fans who'll hate me to bits and get me off the stage by throwing the furniture at me. You can't be sure of anything in this game. I think I might well be a hardcore Rutles fan myself. I suppose I'll have to boo myself off.
I can hardly believe what I'm hearing - there's a woman on the telly talking about having sex with a horse. And there I was booing myself off. I've got to stop this late night TV habit - it's cycling now - very well filmed, lovely scenery but what's the fucking point.
I should also mention that tomorrow night, April 1st, is the 27th anniversary of my first record release - Whole Wide World on the Bunch Of Stiffs compilation came out on April 1st 1977. I don't expect anyone else will pay it any attention - it usually goes past without me even noticing. But here I am celebrating my twenty-eighth successful year in the business. Hurrah! etc. In view of all this I was particularly pleased to see Jake Riviera at the gig last night. He likes Local - he liked that idea that it'll upset people everywhere I play it. Thank God somebody else hasn't change. But that's not quite true - I said, 'are you going to shout at me before I go on?' He laughed and told me he's mellowed. And Nick Lowe sent his regards. It all made me feel quite happy.